Continuously variable transmissions are known in the art and generally include primary and secondary pulleys used to continuously vary the transmission ratio of engine speed to vehicle speed in a motor vehicle. Unlike automatic and manual transmissions, continuously variable transmissions have a different driving “feel” since they do not have discrete gear selections.
One method for controlling the continuously variable transmission ratio (i.e., gear ratio) is to use predefined variograms. These variograms relate vehicle speed to requested power to determine an engine speed. This engine speed, along with the known vehicle speed, is used to calculate a gear ratio for the continuously variable transmission. However, a given variogram is different from another variogram and some variograms are tailored to economical fuel efficient driving, while others are tailored to sporty performance driving. A past solution to this has been to include two different switchable driving modes each corresponding to a different variogram. For example, providing a sports drive mode and an economy drive mode, selectable by an operator of the motor vehicle. This, however, forces the driver to manually select between the two variograms and does not allow for gear selection in between.